In this installment of Pucks with Haggs, host Joe Haggerty welcomes guests Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald and the renowned Mick Colageo, a seasoned editor and writer who has been covering the Boston Bruins since 1991. Together, this dynamic trio analyzes the Bruins' recent victory over the San Jose Sharks, debating whether this win is a definitive sign that the team has successfully broken out of their recent slump.
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SportsTranscript
00:00 Welcome to another edition of the Pucks with Hags podcast.
00:07 As always, I'm your host, Joe Hagerty.
00:08 You can find my work at joehagerty.substack.com.
00:10 Just sign up for a premium membership.
00:14 You'll get all Bruins and NHL content sent directly to your inbox.
00:17 I also write post-game columns for the Boston Sports Journal with Greg Bedard, Mike Giardi,
00:22 a cast of thousands over there, some very talented people, so go check that out as well.
00:27 This week's episode, the 48th episode, I believe, of the Pucks with Hags podcast, we
00:31 have the Boston Heralds' Steve Conroy, and we have our good buddy Mick Colaggio, who
00:37 is writing for several places, and there are several places you can find his work.
00:41 Mick, plug away, please.
00:43 Okay, rankwrapmc.com is my blog.
00:45 I link to it on X Twitter and Facebook, and I'm helping out Murph with the BostonHockeyNow.com
00:52 site, which is part of the National Hockey Now Empire, and also contribute to the Hockey
00:58 News.
00:59 That's the biggest things.
01:00 Very good, Mick.
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01:50 All right.
01:52 Obviously, the Bruins snapped a three-game losing streak last night.
01:56 Three to nothing win over the San Jose Sharks.
01:58 Steve, I will ask you right out of the box, did you see enough last night?
02:03 Because Jeremy Swayman, 28 saves, shutout, pretty decent defensive effort.
02:08 They got the opportunistic scoring.
02:10 They played hard.
02:11 It was a physical affair.
02:12 Did you see enough in last night's game, basically from the second period on, to think that they
02:17 are kind of out of their recent struggles?
02:21 And does it make you rethink what we saw in the last three games as far as the schedule
02:25 kept catching up to them, other things happening, when you view that three-game losing spell?
02:33 I would say it was a good first step towards getting back to their game.
02:38 You got to consider the opponent.
02:39 The Sharks have actually been playing better lately, but they've got wins over Vancouver
02:45 and Washington.
02:46 But still, they're not a great team.
02:48 The five on three, the Bruins did a great job.
02:51 They jumped in front a bunch of shots, but the Sharks shot themselves in the foot several
02:55 times on that five on three as well.
03:01 So it's, like I said, it's a good first step.
03:04 They were slow out of the gate again.
03:06 If they had given up the first goal, you would have heard those grumbles in the garden.
03:14 It might not have been pretty, but they shook it off.
03:17 I thought they got better as the first period went on.
03:20 They started to show some signs.
03:22 And then from the second period on, they were obviously the better team.
03:27 And I like that Potcher line with Maushan and Aynan.
03:32 The biggest thing I came out of that three-game losing streak and watching that game in Columbus
03:37 at the end of that game was they needed to change the forward lines up and change the
03:41 combinations.
03:42 It was high on the importance list.
03:44 Jim Montgomery obviously did that, and I agree.
03:48 I think Potcher with Aynan, with Maushan, allowed Jim Montgomery to do a few things,
03:55 one of which was make sure that James Van Riemsdyk, Charlie Coyle, and Trent Frederick
03:59 stay together too, which I think is something they need to stick with because it works.
04:03 And I think it's something that Montgomery can rely on as a forward line.
04:07 But you're right.
04:08 I think changing things up worked as far as the forwards go.
04:14 You definitely have to take into account that San Jose is not really an NHL roster when
04:19 you look at them, and they have a hard time finishing off plays, being dangerous even
04:24 in a five-on-three.
04:25 Like, credit the Bruins for killing that off, but you didn't really feel like San Jose was
04:29 going to score on that five-on-three either, just watching the game play out.
04:33 Mick, things that you liked out of last night's game and how much you take out of that.
04:38 Is something more than, I think what they were calling it on NHL Network before the
04:44 game last night was like a feel-right kind of game or a get-back kind of game, basically
04:49 like that the San Jose Sharks were a slump buster for the Bruins and were the perfect
04:53 opponent at the perfect time to get them feeling better about their game.
04:57 Yeah, they were, but not in the sense that I think that some people thought, "Okay, good,
05:03 the Bruins have been knocked on that about a few times here.
05:05 They need to fight a tomato can."
05:07 I don't think they were a tomato can.
05:09 I also agree that they were not really an NHL-viable team at this point, but I thought
05:15 it was actually helpful to the Bruins that they're playing a lot better now because the
05:19 Bruins needed to have an opponent that would structure, with effort, with intensity, and
05:25 that's actually what we saw.
05:26 David Quinn has kind of got that team going the right way now, and they provided a credible
05:32 opponent that if the Bruins had played the game the way they had the last three, they
05:36 might have been embarrassed.
05:38 And so it was a good game for them because everybody checked harder, which was a huge
05:44 part of, you know, no matter what they would have done, it wouldn't have been enough if
05:49 every player didn't ratchet it up.
05:52 The intensity, the effort, the consistency, the hardness on the puck, the sturdiness on
05:57 your own stick in skates, and in the battle, everybody I thought to a man was better, and
06:03 they needed to be, and that was the biggest thing.
06:06 If they'd lost the game, I would have been a lot closer to okay with it than if it was
06:11 a crazy game that they wound up winning.
06:13 So as it, you know, and if you look at the ice time from last night's sheet, it really
06:20 reflects something a lot closer to what you would have thought would have been the blueprint
06:26 to the season.
06:27 It's almost as if the coaches meeting, they said, "Hey, let's, let's kill these guys out
06:32 the exact number of shifts that we envision them playing on average throughout the season
06:36 and see what everybody does."
06:40 And asking them just to do your job and do it better, do it harder, and obviously having
06:46 a practice day really, really helped them because that's exactly what we're looking
06:49 at here.
06:50 Yeah, and that was mentioned a lot over the last few days is just that they really basically
06:56 hadn't practiced for 10 days that was needed.
06:58 And, you know, it's funny, you do discount that sometimes, I guess, when you cover a
07:02 team, the importance of having practices in between the games to work on little things
07:08 or just to stay sharp.
07:10 But it's a big deal to the coaches.
07:11 It's a big deal to the players.
07:13 And, you know, that's something that's just part of their, you know, week to week sort
07:18 of structure that they live in as NHL players.
07:22 I thought a big deal last night, and I wrote about this today, was Trent Frederick fighting
07:27 Javani Smith at the end of the second period, making him answer for the boarding hit he
07:33 threw on Marshand earlier in the second period.
07:36 You know, you need to send a message if you're a hockey team that you can't mess with the
07:40 captain.
07:41 You can't mess with one of your best players.
07:43 That was something that I thought was inconsistent during that three-game spell as well, just
07:48 sort of like, you know, really defending teammates as the energy was down and as the sort of
07:55 like, I thought the schedule caught up to them a little bit and you saw physical and
07:58 mental mistakes in that three-game stretch.
08:02 How nice was it, Mick, to see Frederick play that role?
08:06 And how much is he going to have to play that role and be that guy for this team with Lucic,
08:12 you know, out of the mix now?
08:14 Like I look at him, he's got 32 pro fights.
08:17 He's fought legit NHL tough guys like, you know, Marcus Foligno, Tom Wilson, you know,
08:22 guys like that.
08:23 He's really the only one I look at on this roster and say, that's going to have to be
08:27 the guy that's going to have to do that role until they get somebody else.
08:31 Is he up for it, do you think, on a consistent basis?
08:34 I know at times in the past he has been and other times he hasn't been.
08:38 Yep, I think he is, but I don't like the fact that he's that guy.
08:43 I don't want him to be that guy.
08:44 He says, he said last night that a lot of us in this room do it.
08:49 No, they don't.
08:50 He was being nice, just like Javonni Smith was nice to him and surprising him with a
08:55 series of left hands that he didn't know was coming.
08:58 He admitted that last night, said he was switching up on him and then he said it was nice that
09:02 he got a second chance in the fight.
09:05 And you know, so I thought that that was, but it was class all around last night, Freddie,
09:12 and he's been playing a really solid game for them.
09:15 And so he has emerged as the player that they were hoping to be a third line center has
09:20 now become a third line wing.
09:23 And he's quite serviceable in his role.
09:26 I wouldn't mind seeing three of his ilk on the Bruins, but somebody else would want Skill
09:32 to be in the top six and play that role rather than just nibbling around the edges of this
09:37 issue.
09:38 It doesn't bode well for the Bruins if Freddie is going to be the magnet here.
09:41 He needs to be one of.
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10:21 Steve, your thoughts?
10:28 Yeah, I agree with that.
10:31 And I like the fact that Freddie fought, but I also like the immediate pushback when the
10:37 hit happened.
10:38 You see Heinen jump in there and Heinen is not that guy.
10:40 He's not going to drop the gloves on any occasion.
10:45 But he did what he had to do there.
10:47 And then Forbid came in on the top rope.
10:49 I mean, Forbid is a willing guy, but that's not his forte either.
10:54 They're light in that department.
10:57 There's no question about it.
10:58 And we've seen teams take runs at them in the past four or five games.
11:03 It is a concern.
11:05 Yeah, and I thought it was interesting last night too, and a couple days leading into
11:13 the game, that Swayman, Jim Montgomery went right back to Jeremy Swayman after pulling
11:18 him after giving up the second goal against Columbus.
11:22 Obviously, there was a quick discussion after that happened.
11:25 There had to be some kind of a meeting the next day just for the two to discuss things
11:31 and discuss what happened.
11:35 And I thought it was, you know, there's been a couple times this year where they've gone
11:40 with Swayman where I think in years past they might not have, and they're certainly not
11:44 protecting him anymore.
11:46 And he's showing more and more that they're willing to put him in big spots.
11:50 I just thought the fact that he played that game in Columbus when they were riding a two
11:53 game losing streak was a big spot for him to be in.
11:55 And then for them to go back to him when it turned into three in a row against San Jose,
12:01 granted it was against San Jose, but I still think that was another big spot for him.
12:05 And it highlights for me the different sort of viewpoint they're looking at him in this
12:10 year as a goalie that's earning more and more time, and they're given more and more rope
12:15 to and more responsibility to see if he can handle it.
12:18 Just your thoughts, Steve, on that whole situation from, you know, being yanked in Columbus to,
12:23 you know, having a quick meeting with Montgomery the next day to, you know, going right back
12:28 to him in San Jose and the way he played, obviously, with a team playing good defense
12:32 in front of him last night, 28 safe shutout.
12:35 Yeah, when Montgomery pulled him, I think it was pretty obvious to everyone why he was
12:41 doing it, except for Swain, who's in the moment as a competitor, and he doesn't want to come
12:47 out.
12:48 That's all understandable.
12:49 I thought it was a little aggressive, but, you know, he went with his gut, and sometimes
12:54 it works.
12:58 Sometimes it doesn't.
13:02 Of Montgomery, you know, smoothing over whatever might have been, you know, ruffled in that
13:11 situation, and it worked out, you know, and, you know, got a shutout.
13:17 He's a good goalie.
13:19 I don't see anybody getting, you know, three or four starts in a row right now.
13:24 They're both playing pretty well.
13:25 You know, you know, all mark in New York, maybe there were a couple there that you would
13:30 have liked to save on, but nothing egregious.
13:33 The only goal this year that I can think of that was really a bad goal was the one in
13:38 Columbus, the first goal that Swain gave up.
13:41 So I see it.
13:42 I see it being, you know, you know, an alternating situation, you know, for the foreseeable future.
13:50 To your point, Steve, hasn't it been interesting how aggressive Montgomery has been this year?
13:57 And I've remarked on this a couple of times that just like there are several things we've
14:01 seen and a lot of it when, you know, they were like 14, you know, 13, one and two or
14:07 whatever, like they'd won last game, lost one game in regulation when that bag skate
14:12 happened, calling the time out and kind of ripping the team in New York and challenging
14:17 them, pulling Swain in Columbus.
14:20 It really feels to me, it's interesting to me that they're in first place, they're winning
14:25 the majority of their games.
14:27 And Jim Montgomery is cracking the whip way harder this year on that team than he did
14:32 last year and aggressively coaching at times and sort of pulling out of the bag of tricks
14:38 and a lot of them using a lot of them now in the first few months of the season, you
14:42 know, before they're really into the dog days yet.
14:44 Yeah, I mean, he sees what we all see, they're giving up two on one, three on two, you know,
14:51 at an alarming rate.
14:53 But, you know, he said the other day, we know we weren't a 14, one and two team.
15:01 You know, and he wasn't, he wasn't, I didn't look at that as any kind of motivational tool
15:05 or anything that he was trying.
15:07 He was just being stating a matter of fact, they hunt as good as their record is right
15:12 now.
15:13 And, you know, they he has to do what he's been doing, I think, you know, they I don't
15:19 know the fact that, you know, this, you know, the the poor rush defense has not been really,
15:31 you know, corrected yet is a little, you know, you lost Grizzlik for a month and he's just
15:42 now getting back in and he's not quite at his game yet.
15:46 That's part of it.
15:48 And they haven't really figured out what their best third pairing is, whether it's with Mitchell
15:53 or or Shattenkirk.
15:56 So there's still very much a work in progress, which is what we thought they'd be at the
16:01 start of the season.
16:02 Yeah.
16:03 And it goes beyond, you know, the peripheries of the back end too, though.
16:06 Like, let's be honest, Charlie McAvoy was a dash six straight games going into last
16:10 night.
16:11 This is his first.
16:12 And we all, you know, take plus minus and put it into sort of its proper context.
16:16 But like he was a minus player for six games in a row and he was like, you know, minus
16:20 five, I think, in the losses to New York and Columbus, I think it was or maybe Detroit
16:25 before that.
16:26 I can't remember.
16:27 But he he was not playing well.
16:30 And Hampus Lindholm has been, you know, up and down and not quite as good as he's been
16:35 last year.
16:36 But I think it's it should.
16:42 Nobody pays attention to plus minus more than players do.
16:44 Yeah, exactly.
16:45 Especially defensemen.
16:48 So like, you know, I think there's definitely been areas to look at of struggle and places
16:54 where they can improve.
16:56 But I just wonder, watching the whip get cracked like it is, especially with the record the
17:02 way it is, even if they are, you know, there are mistakes that are being made and there
17:06 are things that you look at and flaws to this team that can be corrected.
17:11 I just wonder if the change in tone and tenor with the way he's coaching and the aggressiveness
17:17 that he's coaching within the fact that he seems to sometimes be bringing the attitude
17:21 that maybe he feels like he's not seeing from the players in aggressively delivering the
17:26 message, you know, whether how sustainable that is for an entire season.
17:32 You know, I thought it was interesting last night that Montgomery, when somebody asked
17:36 him like what he said to the team between the first and the second period, he basically
17:39 was like, I didn't say much of anything.
17:41 It was the players, you know, deciding that it wasn't good enough and discussing it and,
17:46 you know, really sort of making the change or coming out in the second period with a
17:50 better brand of hockey.
17:51 And that to me is is a good sign that that is starting to happen instead of him having
17:57 to bring the attitude and bring the aggressiveness and bring everything else as the coach instead
18:01 of the players bringing it.
18:02 Mick, sort of your thoughts on all of this and just the aggressive way that Montgomery
18:10 has coached this year in a clear change from last year when Patrice Bergeron was a captain.
18:16 Right.
18:17 You had more of that intrinsic ability to steady the ship.
18:22 It's kind of like a Bergeron and Crecce were kind of like tea bags in the in the in the
18:27 water and it's been free flowing and able to go all over the place and fly over the
18:32 rim without them there.
18:35 And I think that when you have a team that plays a possession game and wants a four man
18:40 attack, wants to involve the D-man in the offense any time possible, I think those teams
18:48 are susceptible to scenarios where you lose the discombobulated, you get the transition
18:56 to defense on the counterattack if something goes wrong.
18:59 Yeah, it's not it's a very difficult thing to to master and snuff out when it happens
19:07 to you because you don't plan on turnovers.
19:10 So what do you do about them?
19:12 And and and so you want to think on your front foot, you want to play confidently.
19:17 And I and I think that when you were winning, when you should be winning because your great
19:21 goaltending was masking a lot of those flaws, it exaggerated and got to a point that Wiley
19:27 Coyote was 500 feet off the cliff and finally looked down.
19:31 And so what we got here is a team that's trying to recapture structure and it doesn't come
19:37 as naturally without Bergeron and Crecce down the middle, 40 minutes a game to steady that
19:43 ship internally.
19:45 The other thing I just say in regards to the goaltending is last year, they all said players,
19:52 coaches like we believe in both our goalies.
19:54 This year, they're acting like it.
19:56 They're actually playing like it.
19:59 They're actually coaching like it.
20:01 They do believe in them, both of them equally.
20:03 And that's where we are in the season right now.
20:07 The other thing is, is the I think the other thing with this year is a lot of teams went
20:11 to school on the Florida Panthers playoff series against the Bruins, and they all rim
20:16 the puck hard when they get it in the Boston zone, because as Shatton Cerc said before
20:21 the season, it's hard for us to get into our system, which is the short pass puck support
20:26 game when we have to go outside of it in order to recover the puck if they're rimming it
20:32 hard around the boards.
20:34 So we're in the middle there.
20:36 Like do we leave our structure or do we let them just keep doing this until we get flat
20:41 footed enough for them to make a play and get a good shot?
20:44 So the system itself is challenged a little bit in that regard.
20:49 I'd be interested to hear Montgomery talk about this at some point.
20:53 And you know what, what is our team defense when the puck's in our zone and teams are
20:57 trying to do what Florida did last year so well.
21:00 Not everybody does it as well as they did, but they're all trying to do it now.
21:03 So it's harder for the Bruins to get the puck back when it's in their end than it was last
21:08 year at this time for sure.
21:09 Yeah, and it's a great point you make, Mick, about just the style that they make and the
21:15 aggressiveness they want to play with and the defensemen joining the rush.
21:20 Sort of, you know, just the general style that they play in the high risk style that
21:24 they want to play offensively, kind of playing into the odd man rushes and the counterattack
21:29 chances that they give other teams.
21:31 And this was my wonder at the beginning of the year is how are they going to be able
21:36 to operate as a hockey team that's going to be based way more on defense and goaltending
21:42 than last year when they want to play a very aggressive, you know, five-man attack, getting
21:47 the defenseman up, like that kind of style.
21:50 I just feel like them wanting to play that way, especially if they don't have the offensive
21:54 firepower that they have and they're relying much more on defense and goaltending, that
21:58 that's just going to be part of the system that Montgomery wants to play.
22:01 And that's part of the price that they're going to have to pay to do business with the
22:05 way that they want to play.
22:07 Giving up odd man rushes, giving up great chances.
22:11 Like I think that's a byproduct as much of Montgomery's system and the way he wants to
22:15 play as it is, you know, the mistakes that we're seeing on the ice.
22:20 All right.
22:22 We do still do not have a sponsor for the Twitter question of the week or X or whatever
22:26 Elon Musk wants to say.
22:29 Now he's ripping his sponsors that are pulling out of X, whatever.
22:33 But here's the question from Ryan Smith, the real Ryan 16 on Twitter.
22:40 And we touched on this a little bit earlier.
22:42 This is where the Bruins miss a physical presence like Luchich.
22:45 Guys wouldn't be taking cheap shots if he was out there.
22:47 Do the Bruins go out and trade for a tough guy to police things?
22:51 Steve, do you think there is a possibility of them trying to find somebody else like
22:58 Milan Luchich if he's not going to come back just based on the makeup of the team and that,
23:05 you know, they built the team at the beginning of this year, assuming they were going to
23:07 have somebody like that as a presence on the fourth line.
23:12 And so if you do not have that kind of a presence, you're clearly missing something on your roster
23:15 that you need.
23:17 And thereby, if you do bring in somebody like that, it's not going to fall on Trent Frederick's
23:20 shoulders all the time to be that guy if he's kind of miscast in that role at times.
23:24 Do you think there's somebody out there they could get or there's a possibility of them
23:29 trying to look for a player like that?
23:31 Well, it's definitely an issue.
23:36 The problem is I don't think you can get a guy just to be an enforcer type anymore.
23:42 You have to get a guy who can play and a guy who can drop the mitts if he has to.
23:47 And those guys are hard to find.
23:49 You look at what happened with Toronto and Ryan Reeves.
23:52 He was like minus nine in the first 11 games.
23:57 They had to send him.
23:59 He's just not the player he once was.
24:03 Would I love to like to see them go out and get somebody like that?
24:07 Sure.
24:08 But does he exist?
24:11 I'm not sure who you'd be going after.
24:13 Yeah.
24:14 I mean, my feeling has been for a long time that rather than chase after the hired gun
24:22 kind of guy like that, you have to develop your own player like that.
24:25 You have to put some kind of a premium on drafting a player that can play but also is
24:32 known for his toughness and known for his intimidation factor and all of that different
24:37 stuff.
24:38 And granted, that's becoming a more difficult player to find too as all these junior leagues
24:43 are scaling back on letting players play that way and those style of players as well.
24:48 And we're already seeing leagues, some leagues, trying to outlaw fighting altogether.
24:53 So that becomes a more difficult proposition to find a younger player that you can invest
24:58 in and develop like that as well.
24:59 In addition to the guys that might be out there.
25:02 Mick, do you think there's any possibility of bringing in somebody like that or them
25:08 seeking out somebody like that to take some of the burden off Frederick that now is going
25:13 to fall on him to defend Marcian, Pasternak, all these guys that are going to get targeted
25:18 clearly as they've been in the past when teams are trying to rough up the Bruins and slow
25:22 them down?
25:23 Well, first off, Lucic was sort of a perfect solution to Foligno.
25:33 And so from a leadership standpoint, guy in the room, young team, more opportunity for
25:38 prospects.
25:39 They wanted a guy like him around and it was great in theory and it was opportunistic
25:47 in theory.
25:48 The one that intrigues me right now is how Garnett Hathaway is playing in Philadelphia
25:53 and making the highlight reel.
25:55 What's the latest one on the clickbait of him hitting Luke Hughes.
26:01 He just wrecks him off an icing chase.
26:05 And before that, there was a situation where he pummeled somebody.
26:10 You know, I'm thinking like, OK, now what was Hathaway for the Bruins?
26:14 He was a bit muted, I thought, in his role.
26:18 And so some of this, I think, is internal.
26:21 Some of this, I think, is philosophical with the Bruins.
26:24 Some of it, I think, is that they don't want a team that's prone to mayhem.
26:30 And I think that it's almost like we're going to be more like the Avalanche.
26:36 We're going to be a team that doesn't gravitate toward that or that's not going to be part
26:40 of how we win.
26:41 It's going to be things that happen along the way that are necessary and need to be
26:45 dealt with.
26:46 And we just need to be tough enough to make sure we're equipped to deal with it and lay
26:49 it aside.
26:50 So they have a few role players.
26:52 I don't think that's sufficient in the playoffs.
26:55 And I think that that's a philosophical issue with this management that bugs me.
26:59 Well, I agree.
27:00 And I would take it one step further, Mick.
27:03 I would say if you're going to be one of the most penalized teams in the league, as the
27:08 Boston Bruins are, you might as well cause a little mayhem on the ice every once in a
27:13 while and take the fight to other teams and be that style team if you're already going
27:18 to be in the box anyway.
27:19 We're talking about a team that's in the top five in the NHL in minors taken, in power
27:24 plays awarded to other teams.
27:26 We're in the top 10 as far as like penalty minutes goes.
27:29 And they were like this last year, too.
27:31 When you look at it from a discipline perspective, as far as the amount of penalties that they're
27:35 taking, it's not really there like it should be.
27:39 And if it's not going to be there and you're going to be in the box anyway, you might as
27:42 well get some bang for your buck and play that style a little bit more.
27:47 If it's an internal thing where they're telling players like Garnett Hathaway to not be Garnett
27:51 Hathaway, I have a real issue with that, especially when they traded for those plays.
27:55 I'm not sure it's that because I don't think you would even trade for a guy like Garnett
27:58 Hathaway if your philosophy was to trade for him, bring him in and say, hey, we want you
28:02 to play the way you've played your entire NHL career.
28:06 I just thought he just did not show up in the playoffs.
28:09 I did not notice him at all.
28:11 And he certainly didn't play the style that he's known for.
28:14 But I wonder if that had something to do with him being an upcoming free agent, like what
28:18 was going on there in his mind?
28:20 Or maybe he was just tentative coming into a team of established players, you know, in
28:25 Boston.
28:26 Also, I have a 30 and maybe he was a little banged up.
28:27 I'll be fair to him.
28:30 And I don't mean to draw that stark a contrast as much as to say, wow, I don't remember all
28:35 this, you know, and right now the Bruins could use all that in a bag of chips.
28:40 And I also think that Brad Marchand is prone to most of his worst decisions when the Bruins
28:47 are getting beat up.
28:49 And I feel like he gets frustrated with that and he responds to it in ways that don't help
28:54 himself or the team.
28:55 So I think that, you know, when you got a guy who's 35 years old or about to be and
29:01 at this point in his career when it's really great that he's recovered from his double
29:04 labrum and he's playing the way he always once did, he's back to being that guy.
29:09 Let's let him play hockey and let's get other guys in here that can.
29:13 Younger Lions, if they're Tom Wilson isn't available, maybe a Vander Koehn would become
29:21 available if you were willing to pay the price.
29:23 You know, I mean, you know that I know that another Kane was written about before he signed
29:26 with Detroit.
29:27 And I was in my I answered on X, not the right kid.
29:32 So so I know it's Kane that the Bruins need to be thinking about in philosophy, if not
29:37 the player himself, then then definitely in philosophy.
29:40 This has got to get into the top six.
29:42 The culture needs to get a little infusion here, in my opinion.
29:46 Yeah.
29:47 And I agree.
29:48 They need more physicality.
29:49 They need a big, nasty, mean sort of forward player to add to the mix.
29:53 And I think we also just came up with our title for this week's podcast.
29:58 A Vander came to the Bruins?
30:00 Question mark.
30:01 Let's start on that one, Mick.
30:04 That'll get everybody worked up.
30:06 All right.
30:07 Thank you very much for being on this week's episode.
30:09 Austin Herald, Steve Conroy, my buddy and colleague, Michelangelo.
30:13 Thank you very much, boys.
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30:50 Steve Conroy, Michelangelo, thank you very much for joining me.
30:55 Everybody else.
30:56 Thank you very much for listening.
30:57 We'll see you at the rink.
30:58 [MUSIC]